The Whoop Fitness Tracker (6 months with it)

I love this thing.

The Whoop is a simple piece of tech that tells you how recovered you are. It resembles a watch, but you can wear it as an armband for working out. It's not just a steps/heart rate tracker.

I've had my Whoop for 7 months now. It's changed the way I view the relationship between training and recovery.

My Current Lifestyle:

To understand how I use the whoop, let me tell you about my lifestyle.
I'm a fitness coach. I've coached CrossFit for over 5 years and now I train online clients. I don't track macros & count calories currently and I still enjoy desserts & cocktails on occasion.

Training 🥋: I workout in the morning consistently and take some days off. Before Covid-19 I trained jiujitsu 3x a week. Nowadays my training consists of kettlebell & gymnastics strength training, mixed with high-intensity conditioning.

How it improves my life:

It made me understand the effects of alcohol on my body. I'm not a volume drinker, but I do love trying new cocktails. Now, I make sure I drink at least 4 hours before sleeping.

It allows self-experimentation- Does Nyquil actually help with sleep? Does eating steak closer to bedtime affect recovery? Is my body sensitive to caffeine? I can test that now through Whoop and find what works for me.

It holds me accountable. If I'm not recovered, I know not to go to the extreme during training, but it also helps with the opposite. If I'm fully recovered, it eliminates my excuses of taking it easy. On a good day, I know to push it just a bit more. This allows me to train with intention.

I believe in creating a life balance that allows you to enjoy what you love, and still live a healthy lifestyle. If drinking & dessert isn't your thing, I commend you! But if you love indulging from time to time, you don't need to stop. Finding balance is key. The Whoop allows me to know myself better so I can make better decisions.

How it Works - Nerdy Stuff:

It tracks 3 different metrics to gather data:

HRV- Heart Rate Variability: You know your beats per minute? The time between each beat varies- that's what this number is. It tells you how  (the higher the better)

RHR- Resting Heart Rate: During deep sleep it takes your resting heart rate into account. (the lower the better)

Sleep: Length of time in each cycle, sleep disturbances, & respiration rate- I didn't even know there was a sleep cycle deeper than REM. A study in the University of Arizona dubbed Whoop as the most accurate non-invasive sleep tracker.

🌮 - Let's say you slept great. But you celebrated Taco Tuesday and had a couple of margaritas at home. You ate and drank 2 hours before sleeping and passed out. You slept for 8+ hours. Luckily you don't have a hangover, and you wake up fine. Your recovery score becomes a 25%

This can help you predict how you're going to feel during your next training session. It helps you know when to push, and when to pull back. This gives you an honest sense of self-awareness and can prevent your next injury.

Strain Score

Whoop measures your activity based on heart rate zones/ cardio output and gives you a 'Strain' score. If we both ran a mile and got the same exact time, we could have completely different strain scores. This is because we're all in different states of recovery. Workouts affect us all differently.

Whoop changes my life daily because it shows me how my health decisions affect how I feel in and out of training.

I'm not affiliated with Whoop or anything, but if you want to try it out, use this link and we both get a month free!